“My wife is very sick,” Fleming replied. “If you could wait a few days—”
“I wish I could,” Oberholzer cut in. “But we’re investigating a murder, Mr. Fleming.”
For a moment Anthony Fleming appeared to be on the verge of arguing, but then seemed to think better of it. “Of course,” he said, leaving the desk to usher Oberholzer and Hernandez toward the door. “If there’s anything else, let me know.”
“We’ll be in touch,” Oberholzer assured him.
Neither he nor Hernandez spoke until they were downstairs and out of the building, and even then they waited until they were across the street and halfway down the next block. “Well?” Hernandez asked. “What do you think?”
“I think I go up to the Biddle Institute, while you go back to Costanza’s address book,” Oberholzer replied.
“I meant what did you think of him?”
Oberholzer shrugged. “Won’t know til I check out everything he said.”
“I didn’t like him,” Hernandez informed him, even though Oberholzer hadn’t asked. “Something about his eyes.”
“His eyes,” Oberholzer repeated darkly, rolling his own. “Okay, I’ll bite. What about his eyes?”
“They looked dead,” Hernandez said. “I mean really dead. Like a corpse.”
Which is why I’m a sergeant, and you’re not, Oberholzer thought silently, and by the time he got up to 82nd Street, he’d dismissed the idea from his mind.
CHAPTER 35
The Biddle Institute… West 82nd Street… The Biddle Institute… West 82nd Street… The Biddle Institute… West 82nd Street… Ryan kept repeating the words over and over again in his mind, terrified that he’d forget the name of the place where his mother was, or where it was located. But right now he was even more terrified that Tony Fleming would catch him.
His first impulse when he’d discovered there was a trapdoor in the ceiling of his closet had been to climb up through it and see if he could find a way out of the building. But the darkness beyond the shaft of light coming up from the closet was so complete that just peering into it made Ryan’s skin crawl, and in an instant he was imagining the dangers that could be lurking just out of sight. There had to be rats — he’d seen one creeping along the bottom of the drainage moat that ran all the way around the building only a couple of days ago. There’d be spiders and cockroaches, too. Maybe even black widow spiders, or brown recluses. Ryan had read all about them in a book on poisonous bugs he’d found in the library last summer, and it seemed like the worst ones — the black widows and brown recluses, like to live in dark places where you couldn’t see them. There could even be bats. He was pretty sure of that, though not as sure as he was of the rats, cockroaches, and spiders. But bats lived in caves, and the space around him had to be just as dark as a cave.
His skin crawling with just the thought of all the things that might be lurking in the inky darkness, he’d dropped back onto the closet floor and rummaged around in his drawers until he’d found the flashlight he used to read under the covers at night. When he turned it on, the bulb glowed brightly. He was just about to close the drawer when he remembered something else that was in the drawer. It was a knife. It wasn’t very big, and even though most of the scrimshaw was worn off its handle it was still one of Ryan’s favorite things. It had been his father’s, and he could still remember his father showing him how to hone the blade on a whetstone until it was so sharp you could cut your finger without even feeling it. He wasn’t supposed to carry it with him because if he forgot and took it to school he’d be expelled right then. But as he thought of all the things that might be in the space above the closet once again, he picked up the knife and slipped it into his pocket.
A moment later he was back up on the top shelf in the closet, peering once again into the darkness. But this time the beam of the flashlight cut through it, and even though he was pretty sure he’d seen something scamper away from the light, it wasn’t nearly as scary as it had been before.
There was about two feet of space between the ceiling of his room and the beams supporting the floor above. Not enough room for him to stand up in, but plenty if he crawled along on his hands and knees. All kinds of pipes and wires ran through the space, some of them looking like they’d been there forever, others looking pretty new. Then, as he shined the light toward the back of his room, he saw something that shouldn’t have been there at all.
Though it didn’t make any sense, it looked like three steps, starting from the ceiling on which he lay, and rising the two feet up to the floor above his head. But that didn’t make any sense — why would anyone build stairs in a crawlspace? But even as the question formed in his mind, so did an answer.
A secret passage! That was it — it had to be!
His fears suddenly forgotten, he started crawling across the rough boards that had been laid over the beams of the ceiling, clutching the flashlight in his hand and keeping his head low so he didn’t bang it on the joists above him, he crawled toward the steps as quickly — and silently — as he could. A few seconds later he was peering at a narrow staircase, less than three feet wide, that led steeply down to an equally narrow passageway. Ryan gazed at it for several seconds, then turned to peer back over his shoulder at the shaft of light still rising through the open trapdoor.
It seemed like the passageway had to be in the wall between his room and some room in the apartment next door, and when he twisted his neck to look upward, it seemed as if the steps ended one more floor up. But where did the passage downstairs lead? His heart racing, he crept onto the steep flight of steps and made his way down. As he descended into the narrow passage, the walls almost seemed to be closing in on him, and for a moment Ryan felt an almost overwhelming urge to scurry back up the steps, across the ceiling, and drop back into the safety — and light — of his room. But then he steeled himself against the fear; if he was going to find a way out, it was going to have to be through the passage.
He moved forward, and about thirty feet ahead came to a cross passage. He hesitated, trying to get his bearings, but in the confines of the narrow corridor, he couldn’t be certain which way he was going. And if he came to another intersection, and then another, he’d never find his way back. But even as the possibility of getting lost came into his mind, so did the answer. He fished in the right front pocket of his jeans and his fingers closed around his father’s knife. Taking it out of his pocket and flipping its blade open, he crouched down close to the floor and carved two small grooves into the wall, forming a tiny arrow that pointed toward the staircase. When he was done he straightened up and shined his light on the mark. Satisfied that it would barely even be visible to anyone who wasn’t looking for it, he chose a direction, and turned right. A few paces further along he suddenly froze, then waited, uncertain what it was that had caused him to stop.
Instinctively, Ryan snapped off the flashlight and held his breath, waiting.
After a few seconds that seemed like endless minutes, the pupils of his eyes expanded to the maximum in the near total darkness of the passageway, and he saw a tiny speck of light a few paces ahead. Once again he was seized by an urge to race back to his room; once again he conquered his fear. When the light didn’t move, and the sound didn’t come again, he finally crept forward, still not daring to turn on his flashlight, and feeling his way in the darkness with his hands and feet. And finally he found the source of the faint glimmer of light: there was a tiny hole in the wall of the passage, just low enough so that if he stood on his tiptoes, he could peer into it.